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Glen+Saville
Glen+Saville
Participating Frequently
June 16, 2026
Answered

Why is updating apps so glacially slow?

I’ve paid for Creative Cloud in advance for a year, checked for updates after a month away from my Mac and everything needs updating, it’s glacially slow, so far 5 hours to update 5 apps, another 8 to go, this is very poor service for the price I’m charged!

At this pathetic speed I will have wasted a complete day and evening while Adobe count their cash!

 

I’m on a MacBook Pro M4 pro max - Tahoe 26.4.1 128mb ram 4tb ssd hd, so hardware is not the issue, my internet speed is excellent.

 

The only possibility is that Adobe either haven’t been vigilantly checking their service speed or they are delierately throttling back to 1980 speeds? 

 

Not good value for money!!

      Jeff_A_Wright
      Jeff_A_WrightCorrect answer
      Community Manager
      September 28, 2026

      Thread summary
      A poster shared their experience with the Creative Cloud app update process on a Mac, noting that it took approximately 5 hours to update several applications after being away for a month, with 8 additional updates still pending. There is a concern that Adobe may be limiting the speed of updates. This issue was also observed on a second Mac.
      Troubleshooting steps / guidance mentioned by other participants

      • Kglad (Community Expert) suggested using Cmd + Option + R on macOS to reset the Creative Cloud Desktop app.
      • Markh67689002 discovered that enabling the Creative Cloud option in System Settings > Privacy & Security > App Management, which was previously turned off, significantly sped up the update process.
      • Abstract24 reported that granting Full Disk Access to Creative Cloud in macOS System Settings allowed the entire suite update to be completed in approximately 10 minutes. 

      Suggested solutions by Adobe
      1. To grant Creative Cloud full permissions on macOS, follow these steps:

      • Open System Settings and go to Privacy & Security.
      • Ensure that Creative Cloud is enabled under App Management and, if applicable, under Full Disk Access.
      • Limited file access often leads to slow updates. If the installer still gets stuck after this, please follow the troubleshooting steps provided by Adobe.

      Installer is stuck for Adobe apps
      2. To reset the Creative Cloud desktop app, bring it to the foreground and press Cmd + Option + R on your Mac. This will force a restart and reset its background sync queue. After that, try the update again. For more thorough troubleshooting of downloads and speed issues, please follow the additional steps.
      Unable to download non-subscription apps
      3. To resolve issues with the Creative Cloud desktop app, repair or reinstall it. If the app hangs at launch or updates continue to fail, uninstall the Creative Cloud desktop app and install a fresh copy.
      Uninstall Creative Cloud desktop app
       

      View reply

      71 replies

      Show previous replies
      Abstract24
      Abstract24
      Participant
      July 5, 2026

      Hello, granting full disk access to Creative Cloud on MacOS26, solved the problem. Cheers!

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      Glen+Saville
      Glen+SavilleAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      July 4, 2026

      Just an update, Started updating my other laptop, same issues despite taking all precautions!

      The only thing that seems to e helping is making single updates manually and renaming the OOBE folder to OOBE_old. On the Mac type command shift g and type Type ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/ and hit Enter rename the OOBE to OOBE_old to force a new folder for OOBE to be made. Still slow but not catastrophically.

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      kglad
      Community Expert
      kgladCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      July 4, 2026

      thanks for another update

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      Glen+Saville
      Glen+SavilleAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      June 22, 2026

      I leave defender off, the issue with disk access i think was pretty much down to Defender not understanding how a Mac works!

      I usually find that any time I use anything by MS, I get trouble so it’s best left off on my Mac, a PC would probably be better off with Defender on.

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      kglad
      Community Expert
      kgladCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      June 23, 2026

      thanks for the update

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      Community Expert
      Manan JoshiCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      June 16, 2026

      There is an option in Creative Cloud Desktop app to limit bandwidth. Check if that is on for you

       

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      -Manan
        Glen+Saville
        Glen+SavilleAuthor
        Participating Frequently
        June 16, 2026

        No I set it to off to maximise speed

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        Jeff_A_Wright
        Community Manager
        Jeff_A_WrightCommunity Manager
        Community Manager
        June 16, 2026

        Thanks for posting, ​@Glen Saville.

         

        I am sorry you are experiencing slow update speeds on your Mac computer running macOS 26.4.1. I see that you have been subscribed for over a year. Are the slow updates a recent occurrence, or have you always encountered this problem?

         

        To find the cause of the error, I recommend reviewing the installation and download logs for error messages. Please see 

         for information on how to locate any errors during the download and installation process. Since the updates are completing, they will not be fatal errors, so you will need to look closely to determine the cause. The logs are appended to each time, so the most recent updates will be at the end of the file.

         

        Please update this discussion thread if you have any questions about the errors you discover, ​@Glen Saville.

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